Existing drip-filter beverage machines are designed to produce one container of beverage at a time--for example, a pot of drip-brewed coffee or tea. However, with today's wide range of exotic teas, coffees and special coffee blends, it is not practical for a coffee shop to brew entire potfuls of each batch of beans or leaves it has on stock. It is likely that much coffee would be wasted thereby--through going stale before enough customers would purchase from any one pot (particularly in the case of blends in low demand).
Therefore, coffee shops typically brew potfuls of only one or two of their most popular blends. Their remaining bean mixtures are available only for off-site home brewing. No efficient means of sampling or otherwise consuming them in the shop presently is available.
Therefore, a means for efficiently and quickly producing a plurality of individual fresh-brewed cups of coffee is needed. Moreover, given the demands of the commercial beverage vending market, it is desirable to be able to produce significant quantities of such cups more or less simultaneously, or in rapid succession.
The same holds true for the myriad of teas available. Although the availability of teas in bag form does provide one way for single cups to be brewed, individual bags are not a solution for a shop that offers teas that are custom blended on-site.
Prior developments in this field may be generally illustrated by reference to the following information disclosure statement:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. Documents Patent No. Patentee Issue Date ______________________________________ 4,550,652 A. Da Silva Nov. 5, 1985 5,055,311 W. Bauer, Jr. et al. Oct. 8, 1991 2,052,476 A. Koch Aug. 25, 1936 4,667,583 R. Tarozzi May 26, 1987 4,694,738 R. Tarozzi Sep. 22, 1987 4,280,401 R. Cleland Jul. 28, 1981 3,620,155 G. Bixby, Jr. Nov. 16, 1971 4,278,013 K. Norean et al. Jul. 14, 1981 ______________________________________
U.S. Pat. No. 4,550,652 teaches a coffee maker designed to dispense coffee into multiple cups.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,055,311 teaches a stand for holding a charge of coffee grounds (hereinafter "stock"), into which stand water is poured. The water then gravity feeds a brewed beverage into a cup.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,052,476 teaches a beverage-producing device wherein water is poured into a segmented compartment, thereby to gravity feed into a single container (page 2, column 2, lines 40-42).
The rest of the patents are representative of what was found in a search of the art.